ne--Archdeacon Groome told me a Fortnight ago that he had been at
Weymouth Street. Donne better, but still not his former Self.

By the by, I have got a Skeleton of my own at last: Bronchitis--which
came on me a month ago--which I let go on for near three weeks--then was
forced to call in a Doctor to subdue, who kept me a week indoors. And
now I am told that, every Cold I catch, my Skeleton is to come out, etc.
Every N.E. wind that blows, etc. I had not been shut up indoors for some
fifty-five years--since Measles at school--but I had green before my
Windows, and Don Quixote for Company within. _Que voulez-vous_?

Shakespeare again. A Doctor Whalley, who wrote a Tragedy for Mrs.
Siddons (which she declined), proposed to her that she should read--'But
screw your Courage to the _sticking place_,' with the appropriate action
of using the Dagger. I think Mrs. Siddons good-naturedly admits there
may be something in the suggestion. One reads this in the last memoir of
Madame Piozzi, edited by Mr. Hayward.

_Blackbird_ v. _Nightingale_. I have always loved the first best: as
being so jolly, and the Note so proper from that golden Bill of his. But
one does not like to go against received opinion. Your _Oriole_ has been
seen in these parts by old--very old--people: at least, a gay bird so
named. But no one ever pretends to see him now.

Now have you perversely crossed the Address which you desire me to abide
by: and I can't be sure of your 'Branchtown'? But I suppose that enough
is clear to make my Letter reach you if it once gets across the Atlantic.
And now this uncertainty about your writing recalls to me--very
absurdly--an absurd Story told me by a pious, but humorous, man, which
will please you if you don't know it already.

_Scene_.--Country Church on Winter's Evening. Congregation, with the Old
Hundredth ready for the Parson to give out some Dismissal Words.

_Good old Parson_, not at all meaning rhyme, 'The Light has grown so very
dim, I scarce can see to read the Hymn.'

_Congregation_, taking it up: to the first half of the Old Hundredth--

'The Light has grown so very dim,
I scarce can see to read the Hymn.'

(Pause, as usual: _Parson_, mildly impatient) 'I did not mean to read a
Hymn; I only meant my Eyes were dim.'

_Congregation_, to second part of Old Hundredth:--

'I did not mean to read a Hymn;
I only meant my Eyes were dim.'

_Parson_, out of Patience, etc.:--

'I didn